Liberia -LRB- CNN -RRB- First , the good news : Ebola is in decline .

2014 was a year of profound fear for communities living with -- and dying of -- the disease ; of health workers making the ultimate sacrifice , dying as they tried to save ; of apocalyptic forecasts as to the disease 's possible spread .

With 8,810 dead , governments and aid agencies are now giving a timeline on when they might reach zero cases -- and they 're saying that could be in just a few months .

That there are just a handful of cases left now in Liberia is an incredible feat , but it has come at an equally incredible cost .

And Ebola is still critically dangerous . Hotspots remain . Sierra Leone has 65 confirmed cases , most in the west of the country around the capital and Port Loco where the disease spreads through overcrowded slums .

The World Health Organisation -LRB- WHO -RRB- said last week that only half the cases in Liberia and Guinea came from known Ebola contacts , which suggests that hidden cases are causing outbreaks .

Even as states of emergency and quarantine restrictions are lifted , there is a chorus of warnings against complacency .

`` A single new case is enough to reignite an outbreak , '' says Brice de la Vigne , director of operations at Medecins sans Frontieres -LRB- Doctors Without Borders -RRB- . `` Until everyone who has come into contact with Ebola is identified , we can not rest easy . ''

And getting to zero ca n't be the end of it . Oxfam is calling for `` a massive post-Ebola Marshall Plan , '' saying the world `` can not dither on recovery as it dithered over Ebola . ''

Their plea comes as the WHO and other agencies engage in intense soul-searching : What went wrong ? Why did it take so long to turn the corner on this disease ? Could it happen again ?

Admitting to organizational shortcomings Margaret Chan , the WHO 's Director General , has asked the world 's wealthier nations to step up to the plate and support poor countries ' fragile health care systems .

`` Well-functioning health systems are not a luxury , '' she insists . `` Well-functioning health systems are the cushion that keeps sudden shocks from reverberating throughout the fabric that holds societies together , ripping them apart . ''

Liberia , Sierra Leone and Guinea have never had well-functioning health systems . They have always had some of the lowest ratio of healthcare workers to patients in the world . Liberia had just one doctor for every 100,000 people in 2013 according to WHO figures . That works out at around 40 doctors for the whole country . Sierra Leone had two per 100,000 people . And there were n't even statistics for Guinea .

Then Ebola destroyed what little healthcare they had , taking the lives of 488 health workers and leaving people too terrified to go through the doors of clinics they saw as harbourers of the disease . Children were n't vaccinated against other critical diseases . Centers distributing anti-retrovirals to the tens of thousands of people with HIV were closed . Mothers gave birth at home .

Now trust in the region 's decimated health care system is beginning -- albeit painfully slowly -- to return .

At a clinic in Monrovia , mothers fill a waiting room . They 've brought their babies in to be vaccinated -- there are no Disneyland immunization issues here .

`` We know that during the height of the epidemic immunization rates collapsed by some 70 % , '' says Sheldon Yett , UNICEF 's country representative in Liberia . `` Now we 're trying to climb back up but it will take time . ''

Placing preliminary healthcare within the community has also been a success .

Laboratoriess and Ebola Treatment Units -LRB- ETUs -RRB- have been followed by Community Care Centres , or CCCs . The first were built in November in Sierra Leone . Now there are dozens in Sierra Leone and Liberia . Their basic aim is to provide a place within the community where people can be isolated and provided with preliminary care -- pain relief and oral rehydration -- in an environment which is safe and humane .

Susan Michaels-Strasser , project director of the Global Nurse Capacity Building Programme at the Mailman School of Public Health at Colombia University , has just spent three weeks assessing the impact of these CCCs in Sierra Leone . She thinks they 've played a huge role in restoring people 's faith in Ebola-related care .

`` We saw some amazing innovation , '' she explains . `` Where the family members can see their loved ones who have Ebola , so they 're not taken behind a blue fence and never seen again . And even if the person does n't survive they saw the care that was provided , they saw the attempts to save the life . ''

The original idea behind the CCCs was to train local volunteers in infection control procedures and have them man the units . But it turned out there were better options .

`` What the various partners found when they went into these communities was that there were people , there were nursing students , there were retired nurses , there were nurses who had left the profession but had the skills , the ability and the desire to help , '' says Michaels-Strasser .

And for all the fear , the heartache and the stigma around the disease , there 's a clear sense of pride amongst those who are leading the charge against Ebola at a community level .

Fanah Manasare is from Guinea 's Forest Region . Aged 18 years old , he survived Ebola and now he goes from village to village spreading the word about the disease .

`` Even elders will listen to me more than they would to you because I have been a victim of Ebola , '' he says , beaming with pride .

Josephine Conteh says she is `` happy '' to be working as a nurse at the Pate Bana Maran Community Care Centre in Sierra Leone . `` My conscience -- if I saved one person here , I 'm thinking that I have saved the whole nation . That makes me feel good . ''

The Ebola outbreak has helped create some hastily pulled together infrastructure which could form the building blocks of a more robust healthcare system in these three traumatised countries .

And the disease leaves behind people galvanised for action as a result of their ordeal .

Now the question is how to use these resources to transition from an emergency response situation to more sustainable healthcare provision in the future .

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WHO says fight against Ebola has shifted from slowing transmission to ending epidemic

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Fewer than 100 new confirmed cases in Guinea , Liberia and Sierra Leone in past week

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Oxfam has called for post-Ebola Marshall Plan-style support for West Africa